Los Angeles, as a sprawling metropolis and ever-changing landscape, boasts a diverse and engaged community of poets and writers. This playlist features some of the contemporary poets writing in the scene today.

of coursekineticlike magical malachite riversflowing from moonsblowing through the 3/4 summits of motionless anginas

I’ve lookedfor only the tonalities that scorch which bring to my lips wave after wave of sensitivity by virulence

yesa merciless bitternessbrewed by a blue-black tornado of verbsin a surge of flashing scorpion chatterin a dessicated storm of inferential parallels & voltage like a scattered igneous windco-terminus with the bleeding hiatus & the resumption of breath

I find myself each evening, while commuting on the 101, or when the blue barns and silos within shut down and darkness lifts me to sleep, repeating commonplace words I had heard earlier that day, or entire phrases from conversations I had with acquaintances. And I twist my breath over a syllable or sentence like a fin slicing water toward trawled dolphin, or the dregs of a bog dripping from the faucet in a marble bathroom. While driving home, I sweat from netting in an innuendo uttered that morning from parking-attendant or tourist, a code which, after originally sinking in the swamp of consciousness, has surfaced, its skin brackish and green. Later, I sit up in bed, water-bucketed awake with the chill that I had not listened to someone’s plea, that there is a fire-alarm in everyone’s voice, that the foundations are buckling, and though the sidewalk is glazed with moonlight, the remaining deer are bucking up the hills; if I were to stop, I would smell these lands burning; if I were to drink, I would taste water heavy with smoke. The voices rise, converge within my stifling fields, until I fumble out of bed to pace my apartment and beg that they are only echoes and not the petitioners themselves, echoes that have inhabited me so that I might listen to their squabbles, their women giving birth, their cocktail parties, diners, their salesmen crying hysterically in motel rooms, the deafening hiss of prayers.

Pulling the car over, it’s hard to see through all of this. All of these. Tears. Probably a bucket for each of the 38 years I’ve been alive. They won’t all come rushing down, or up, or sideways, at the same time. It’s just five minutes worth, for now. It’s enough for all of the reminders.

To know what it’s like to want to pull the skin off of your body because maybe that would make more sense than living in it, but slowly because you’re never sure of anything, by the time you reach the folds of your torso you may change your mind and choose the tougher way out.

To know what it’s like to say goodbye to not trying hard enough, removing yourself from the worst case scenario, to walk head on into… yourself, one day ripping apart at a time. Slowly, because they say losing weight too fast isn’t healthy, and putting the weight back on two-fold will most certainly kill you quicker than it takes you to change your mind, about anything.

To know what it’s like to fall in love after after the divorce, quickly. Crushing. And to fall out of it at roughly the same degree. Crashing. And remembering that this is what it’s like… to live. And you’ve finally done the homework…right and/or wrong, it’s done. You know this because everything hurts, differently. Crying isn’t confusing, it’s only sadness. And yes, to be able to say that word, divorce. And to know what it’s like to sleep at night.

And to know what it’s like for your body to feel, again. After. Much after. (Time is irrelevant). And to respond, not again. This is entirely new. The young version of you was never allowed to respond; to say thank you, to say yes with a smile, or silence. To be. To sit, in silence. To sit, still.

And to know what it’s like to have the luck. All the luck… in this fucked up kind of world. For luck to find you. A needle in the mess of burnt sticks that are never good enough for a fire. This is the world we should try to live in longer than the world in which we walk from, run through the edges of. To be able to see all of these worlds, from where you stand. From where these feet stand.

I’d like to carry you through your world to this world — neighbors, or something similar, not too far away. But that isn’t the way to here. The I. First, small kisses to the foreheads of your body. Then you have to feel your skin coming off. Slowly.

I am alive in Los Angeles!Where the angles change like isosceles.Citywide topographiesundulate across massive landscapemoving from chain-link to palatial gates intoseparate economic states with rising birth ratesbelow hilltops in the streetscapes.One can barely even equivocatethe fluctuations in rent so evidentall across from block to block to block.Extravagance and adversity interlock:palatial spots, crosswalks, burrito shops,housekeepers are hanging out at bus stops,the Country Club's all walled off.The city's blowing up like a molotoveven when I'm in the showerI hear the horns honk. I am alive in Los Angeles!Whether I’m listening to Miles Davisor electronic musicI move thru trafficloving the inner-city dynamicsthe midcity magic movesfrom happiness to tragic,adversity to extravagancelike seeing Korean grandparents moving slowlyCatholic school children crossing fearlesslyI saw a stray dog that looked like Spuds Mackenzieby the Belmont Tunnel on 2nd Streetlive and direct in the Rampart District. I am alive in Los Angeles!

All the people stopped stifled up in gridlock.Everywhere roadblocks cause charged reactions.Waves of chaos are collapsingkeeping people bottled up.Tempers are rising up,desperate drivers look for shortcuts.There's no way around it.Congested walls keep surrounding,surrounding coming down around us.Claustrophobic intensitystuck in the web of density,people have a propensity to have anxiety.It's daily with so many people in one place.Interacting face to face to facewith different destinations.Everybody keeps racingin this fast-paced nation. I AM ALIVE IN Los Angeles!

The neon crowns glowabove the City of Angels,haze hovers after anothernuclear sunset, I love it all.

It was funny, in a way. The way that things occurred. You held yourself so simply, I thought. I only ever wished that I was a better person. There were times when I thought I stood out. There were times when I thought I lived obscurely. I can’t wait, I said. I was sitting very simply. My legs were crossed. I felt cool in the weather. I was thinking about what I might want to eat for dinner. I was thinking about where I might have something to eat. It was a very nice day. The air was cool. I was talking to you. But there was something to do. There was something doing. I could feel my fingers when I moved them. I could feel my toes. I could see you from where I was standing on the patio. I was always looking at something. I think this thing is swell, I said. It was funny. I was typically very forthcoming. I am very forthcoming, I thought.

~

If I call out to the world. You do not own the world. A child. Or an oath you take. Or a promise you make. And every time the smoke clears, and there is something new on the horizon. It was a brand new day. It was in the afternoon. And I wanted to do something entirely new, at that point. Each second provides its own opportunity, I thought. Or that was what I was saying. All I was saying to you, at that point. The things I kept telling you. I put my head in the water. Your color here in the water. I was kneeling by the water, and I asked you a question. It was like there was a sudden twist of color. Or if ever there were going to be color. The surface of the water was colorful.

~

In a minute, I said. I looked around. I could get out of my chair anytime I wanted to, I thought. I could not deny that I was looking around the patio, at that point. But I was listening, too. I could admit that, too. I wondered about the various things I was doing. How I might have wanted to move to another place. I could see smoke. There was fire. There was a lot to do. I had a lot of things that I wanted to do, at that point. I was in the house all morning. I could see my pencils and pens on the desk from where I was standing in the hall. I found that I could think of a lot of things at one time. For instance, I was thinking about how I might hold my head up firmly and correctly at any given time. I wondered about the silence between us. It felt very awkward, at that point. I put my best foot forward. I felt good. However, I was surprised by the chain of events. The way that things were going. What was going to happen next? There was a lot of noise. I went on. And that was the way it was going to be, I thought. No matter the cause. The color was very good when I was leaning over the water. I could hear you.

I came into the world a young manThen I broke me offStill the sea and clouds are Pegasus colorsMy heart is Pegasus colors but to get there I must go backBack to the time before I was a womanBefore I broke me off to make a flattened lapAnd placed thereon a young manWhere I myself could have dangledAnd how I begged him enter thereMy broken young man partsAnd how I let the mystery collapseWith rugged young man punctureAnd how I begged him turn me Pegasus colorsAnd please to put a sunset thereAnd gone forever was my feeling snakeAnd in its place dark lettersAnd me the softest of allAnd me so skinless I could no longer be nakedAnd me I had to de-bansheeAnd me I dressed myselfI made a poison suitI darned it out of mythsSome of the myths were beautifulSome turned ugly in the makingThe myth of the slender girlThe myth of the fat oneThe myth of rescueThe myth of young menThe myth of the hair in their eyesThe myth of how beauty would save themThe myth of me and who I must becomeThe myth of what I am notAnd the horses who are no mythHow they do not need to turn PegasusThey are winged in their un-mythThey holy up the groundI must holy up the groundI sanctify the ground and say fuck itI say fuck it in a way that does not invite deathI say fuck it and fall down no new holesAnd I ride an unwinged horseAnd I unbecome myselfAnd I strip my poison suitAnd wear my crown of fuck its

No more lines on the luminescence of light, of whatever variation.No more elegies of youth or age, no polyglottal ventriloquism.No more songs of raw emotion, forever overcooked.No more the wisdom of banality, which should stay overlooked.No more verbs of embroidery.No more unintentional phallacy.No more metaphor, no more simile. Let the thing be, concretely.No more politics put politically: let the thing be concretely.No more conditional set conditionally — let the thing be already.No more children pimped out to prove some pouting mortality.No more death without dying —immediately.No more poet-subject speaking into the poem-mirror, watching the mouth move, fixing the thinning hair.No more superiority of the interiority of that unnatural trinity —you,me,we— our teeth touch only our tongues.No more Gobstoppers: an epic isn’t an epic for its fingerprints.No more reversals of grammarif asemphasis.No more nature less natural; no more impiety on bended knee.No morejeu de mot, no moremot juste.No more retinal poetry.

a couple wanted to be -to-be and TV wants the couple-to-be to be on TV. the people from TV believe we’d be good TVbecause we had wanted to be -to-be and failed and now might.

to be good at TV make like TV isn’t. make like living in our living roomand the TV crew isn’t there and the boom isn’t theresaving the woman from TV’s voice that won’t be there saying tell us about the miscarriage. in the teeming eveningand some dog barking at all we cannot hear.

ii. would you be willing to be on TV?people in their house on TV are ghosts haunting a house haunting houses. pregnant women in their houses on TV are haunted houses haunting a house haunting houses.our living room a set set for us ghosts to tell ghost stories on us.

would you be -to-be on TV?to be the we we weren’t to be and the we we’re-to-be to be on TV. the pregnant woman agrees to being a haunted househaunting flickering houses. yes ok yeah yes.

iii. formsin the waiting room for the doctor to TV the pregnant woman’s insides out on a little TV on TV. filling a form on TV is to flesh into wordson a sheet that fills up with you. yes yes and turn to the receptionistonly to turn back to a ghost waiting to be officially haunted yes.

a magazine riffles itself on TV; loud pages, a startled parrot calls your name then alighting on magazinesand waddle the hall you -to-be and the TV crew that isn’t going to be there on TV and the doctor and you are looking at her little TV on TV the doctor says see? there they are. ghosts sound themselves out to flicker on the little TV.there they go to the pregnant woman scared to be such good TV.

iv. cutto one-more-time-from-the-top yourselfis to ta-daaaaa breathing. the curtain drops, plush guillotine.would you talk about the miscarriage one more time? ta-daaaaa

v. all the little people out thereafter she was a haunted house before we haunted us for TV then the pregnant woman watched TV. vomit on her teeth like sequins.

our TV stayed pregnant with the people from TV’s TV show pregnant with haunted houses wailing then smiling up into our living room.

it helps she said of the people from TV’s TV show so yes then to TV to help,she said, the haunted houses in the living rooms we said yes to help thousands of wailing houses.

vi. only with some effortthe best ghosts trust they’re not dead. nono the best ghosts don’t know how not to be alive. like being good at TV.

inside the pregnant woman, the -to-be of the family-who-failed- but-now-might-be-to-be were good TV.but the we-who-failed butterfingered and stuttered,held our hands like we just got them.

we’ve been trying so long we said we can’t believe it this is finally happening.

vii. scheduled c-section: reality TVand they’re born made of meats on TV!the doctor voilas them from the woman’s red guts into the little punch bowls.

the new mother says I want to see them my babies!

the doctor shoves the new mother’s guts back, express lane grocer.

the demure camera good TVs up two meat babies into wailing ghosts.

off, the new mother’s blood like spilled nail polish.

viii. ghost storydid you know about dogs and ghosts? one barking at one’s nothing?

ix. the miscarriage: exposition for reality TVit helps to be on TV. we want to be good on TV. ok yes. to help we want to be good TV. yeah yes.please tell me about the miscarriage.

the woman from TV wants good TV and something specific that gets you rightin the tear to the eye to milk the pregnant woman’s breasts heavy with—.

good, we talk about the dead one on TV.

it was horrible, the blood was everywhere that morning a dog barks.one-more-time-from-the-top. it was horrible, the blood was everywherrrrrdoggone dog goes on. on to take three and it was horriboomin the boom goes the barking and bad TV! bad TV! we want to help being good TV please tell me about the miscarriageone more time it was

x. after the c-section was more likethe doctor shoving the new mother’s guts in, jilted lover packing a duffel.

xi. talking about the miscarriage: behind the scenes please tell me about the miscarriageplease tell me about the miscarriage please tell me about the miscarriage please tell me about the miscarriagethe fifth take and it was horrible, that’s all.they call them takes, again we’re robbed.

xii.did it help watching a house fill with haunting every room or help haunting the house? watch! here we are:an expanding family of ghosts. we aren’t here but yes ok yeah yes.did it help? and even now know yes they were born on TVbut before it was horrible wasn’t it must have been. please tell me about the miscarriage for I don’t know how not to be tellingand the dog growls still and still and still